Texas Man Has Run Sub-5:00 Mile 38 Years in a Row

On May 19, Dr. William Moore, a pediatrician in Dallas, Texas, ran a 4:56.1 mile to extend his streak of running at least one sub-5:00 mile per year to 38 years. The 53-year-old won his masters heat an all-comers meet at the Southern Methodist University track.

The streak started in 1978, when Moore ran 4:39 as a high school sophomore at Dallas Jesuit. And it was oh-so-close to starting in 1977—Moore says he ran 5:01 as a freshman. He kept the streak going while running track and cross country for Rice University and while marathon training post collegiately. Lately, the time isn’t so easy to hit.

“It certainly gets a little more difficult to run the times that you used to in your youth,” Moore told Runner’s World Newsire. But he stays motivated by looking at age-grading tables[4] and by chasing sub-5:00 miles.

Moore trains seriously. He runs about 60 miles per week with workouts on Tuesdays and Fridays while working a full-time job and finding time for his three daughters and family, who, he said, are very understanding of his running schedule.

He has a group of runners that he meets with for most of his runs. “Running with a group reminds me of the college days,” Moore said. “It’s just that these damn watches are slower or the tracks are bigger.”

The fastest Moore ran during the streak was 4:10 when he was at Rice. He was always more of a distance guy. He qualified for the 2000 Olympic Trials[5] marathon and ran a PR of 2:19:15 at the Austin Marathon in 1999.

Even during marathon training, he always made sure to get in a mile race. Over the last 15 years, however, the times have slowed. “At some point I couldn’t break 4:30,” Moore said. “Then it was 4:40, and last year I couldn’t break 4:50.”

He is getting closer to 4:50 again. Moore ran 4:54.88 on June 2.

He isn’t the only one with an extensive streak. In fact, Steve Spence[6], the 1991 World Championships[7] marathon bronze medalist, is two years ahead of Moore. Spence has run sub-5:00 ever year since 1976. He extended his streak to 39 in February 2014 with a 4:56. He wrote in an email to Runner’s World Newswire that he’s currently making plans to make it to 40.

Moore, who says he once cooled down with Spence after a race in the late 1990s or early 2000s, is motivated to keep pace with his fellow streaker.

“In his prime and in my prime, there’s no race,” Moore said. “But at this point, that’s something that I’m kind of in the same field with him, so I’m going to try to chase him as long as I can.”

The only problem is that he has to wait before he can continue his streak.

“I wish I could turn around in a week or two and it would be January 1,” Moore said.